1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the treatment of toxic waste, wastewater industrial process water, oxidation processes of the chemical and pharmaceutical industries, and any other areas that require oxidation processes. Toxic wastes, including any concentration of chlorinated and non-chlorinated hydrocarbons and alicyclics, including TCB, PCBs, TCE, dioxins, phenols, pesticides, cyanide, and the multitude of other inorganic, organic, and harmful microbiological materials contained in waste effluents that, in general, are only partially degraded by conventional treatment methods, are effectively eliminated by this invention.
2. The Prior Art
Conventional chemical oxidation methods to convert these substances to removable and harmless oxides are generally ineffective, expensive, and detrimental to the environment. U.S. Pat. No. 3,549,528 to Armstrong discloses simply bubbling the ozone into a fluid to be treated and no attempts at ozone hypersaturation are made. However, his and other earlier attempts of the sonic enhancement of ozone by Bybel et al. and Henderson et al. disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,076,617 and 4,003,832, respectively, constituted a significant improvement by being more effective and more economical. Enhanced ozone oxidation processes do not have effects detrimental to the environment that are encountered with conventional chemical treatment methods. Numerous chemical enhancers of ozone, including peroxides, catalysts, and ultraviolet have further improved the results of this process.
Although the earlier ozone-sonic oxidation processes constitute an improvement over conventional methods, these improvements were not significant enough to result in a wide-spread use since their invention in the mid-1970's. The same applies to the chemical ozone enhancers that have been in use since at least the 1920's.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,064,047 Bernreiter describes an electrostatic enhancement system wherein electrically charged waste water is sprayed against the inner surface of a chamber. This type of electrical charge is of low efficiency since it relies mostly on an atomization process and is not applied with the electrodes inside the total fluid flow as in the present invention. Neither his nor any other method described previously provides a continuous or long-term ozone hypersaturation with a magnetic-type charge of the ozone molecules that, in conjunction with the sonic dispersion, maintains a microfine bubble structure leading to a dramatic enhancement of the reaction kinetics and producing a stoichiometric oxidation for high concentrations, e.g. of PCBs, as in this invention. None of the electrostatic pretreatments of dissolved wastes allows for a destruction of low concentration toxics, e.g. of dioxins, within minutes as is claimed for this invention with its unique ozone preparation.